Cold War breeze

A chill that brought back memories of the Cold War swept across U.S.-Russian relations as President Obama canceled his face-to-face summit meeting planned with Vladimir Putin for early September in Moscow. "We have informed the Russian government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda," the White House said in a statement, citing deep differences over missile defense, arms control, trade, global security and human rights.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was the Snowden affair, the case of a former intelligence contractor with the National Security Agency, who stole and distributed secret U.S. surveillance material to the press. "Russia's disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship," the White House announced.

For several weeks, Mr. Snowden was holed up in the transit area of the Moscow airport, hoping for asylum somewhere until the Russians granted him a one-month stay. His father, Lon Snowden, and the family's lawyer had obtained visas to visit him and encourage his return to the United States to face federal charges — under certain conditions negotiated in advance. He is "to be vetted in open court for the American people to have all the facts," the elder Snowden said.

The arrogance of these people is mind-boggling. First the younger man betrays his oath and spills top-secret intelligence material that had been entrusted to his care, while posing as a patriot fighting for openness in government. Then the father pops up, hoping to squeeze every drop of anti-government propaganda from the case. Now we have two Snowdens for the price of one.

For the record, the American people never have been kept from having all the facts, and that "vetting in open court" has been available for Snowden Jr. all along. All he needed to do is return to the United States, answer the charges against him and face the consequences of his actions.

The underlining premise of the entire conflict is the assumption that the United States is undermining democracy and acting like a police state by spying on its citizens, and someone has to step in to halt the snooping. That paranoid mind-set prevails even though the intelligence gathered is an important weapon in the fight against terrorism, and none of the data could be released without a special court order.

In the end, it all seems to come down to the question: Whom do you trust, your government or an assortment of whistle-blowers? If I have to choose between the likes of Snowden and the credibility of the United States, I don't need to think twice.

The chill of another Cold War was first felt about a year ago when Mr. Putin re-took the presidency of Russia, adopting a deeply nationalistic and more openly confrontational stance toward the United States than his predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev.

President Obama sought to cultivate Mr. Medvedev as a friend of the United States, trying to ease Russian concerns about plans for a European missile defense designed by the Bush administration. He also sent then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, where she proclaimed a "reset" in U.S.-Russia relations. Mr. Putin, however, wants no part of any coziness, escalating his anti-American rhetoric and ending two decades of democracy and civil society training by the U.S. Agency for International Development. He even banned adoptions of Russian children by Americans.

The last time U.S.-Russia relations took a nose dive was after the Georgia war. In the fall of 2008, Georgia and Russia fought a brief war after Georgia launched an intense artillery barrage on the capitol of South Ossetia, and Mikheil Saakashvili, president of the former Soviet republic, sought to forge a cordial relationship with the United States.

The Cold War is the name given the relationship that developed primarily between the United States and the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1980. Neither side ever fought the other — the consequences would have been too appalling — but they did fight for their beliefs using client states. The Vietnam Warwas one example. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the Americans supplied the rebel Afghans while never physically involving themselves, thus avoiding a direct clash with the Soviet Union.

It's worth noting, however, that there still is cooperation between the superpowers on opposing nuclear arms development by Iran and North Korea. Russia has joined the United States in voting for new sanctions in each case.

Presidents Obama and Putin last met in June, in connection with a conference of the Group 8 industrial nations. Mr. Putin said then that the United States and Russia had "an opportunity to move forward on most sensitive directions." Mr. Obama, too, expressed optimism, declaring, "I think this is an example of the kind of constructive, cooperative relationship that moves us out of the Cold War mind-set."

Evidently, the temperature has dropped a few degrees since the president has made that statement.